Coal-to-diesel plant moves closer to becoming a reality

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ^ | Sunday, July 25, 2004 | Michael Rubinkam, The Associated Press

[Willie Green]

Fill 'er up with ... coal?

GILBERTON, Pa. -- Cars running on coal? It could happen in this country -- some day.

John Rich Jr., whose family has worked the anthracite coal seams of eastern Pennsylvania for a century, plans to turn a $100 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy into the nation's first commercial plant converting waste coal, or culm, into low-emissions diesel fuel.

Updating a technology first developed by German scientists in the 1920s, the $612 million plant would produce 5,000 barrels of diesel a day, eliminate hundreds of unsightly culm banks, and provide jobs in a region that sorely needs them. If it succeeds, plants could spring up in West Virginia, Illinois and Kentucky.

[Willie Green]

Related thread: Coal-to-liquid solution for energy woes

[Willie Green]

ping

[First_Salute]

Hannibal Twin-8 Bump.

[KriegerGeist]

I remember when I was a kid, my dad taking me to the plant in his town in northwestern Wisconsin that made coal oil. It smelled somewhat different than kerosene. They made oil for lamps and stoves before electricity. I remember the mountain of coal brought in by the trains outside the plant that would be brought in and process it inside somehow converting the coal into coal oil. I didn't know this was a new process...

[RS]

" Cheap gasoline made coal-to-diesel economically indefensible in the 1990s. But now, with oil prices stuck at near-record highs, the idea is beginning to gain traction."

So this supplies an expensive source of diesel...
... and all they have to do is turn the spigots on again after we have spent the billions on these plants.

[backhoe]

A post from the Vault of fogotten posts:

Oil from Coal....Boon, Bane, or Boondoggle?

[Willie Green]

I didn't know this was a new process...

My understanding is that it's basicly the same old process,
but dramaticly updated with new technology to make it both more efficient and compliant with environmental regulations.

[pointsal]

Pour enough money and tax incentives and most anything and ....viola.... things happen.
Look at the idle wind machines in California.

[Comus]

The process was developed by the Germans before World War II. The first SASOL coal gasification plant in South Africa was built in the 1960's with a larger one later on. Diesel would have to be in the $3 - $4 dollar a gallon range for coal based products to be competitive. $100 million would not build very much of a plant. Replacing one large petroleum refinery with a coal synfuels plant of equal capacity would cost billions of dollars and they are huge physically. SASOL 2 goes on for miles.

[StACase]

LINK

[I got the rope]

Coal gasification is different than what they are talking about in this article. This article is talking about coal liquifaction which was discovered here in the US I believe. I think it was a TEXACO/Department of Energy project.

[nightdriver]

"Mike Ewall, an environmental activist from Philadelphia, said it would be far better to plant beach grass on the culm piles than to use up the coal."

One would expect an "environmental activist" to badmouth a project like this one. It doesn't contribute to his agenda of destroying capitalism in America.

admittedly, this process still had the problems of getting coal to the processing plant, but in this instance, having the feedstock already sitting there provides not only the incentive to use this process, it provides a working model to research and improve the process.

I say kudos to the enterprise.

[struwwelpeter]

Ukraine has a lot of waste from their mines, but they prefer propane in their trucks.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

yawn, this technology is ancient. First the Germans in WW 2, then the South Africans during the the embargos and boycotts.

South Africa had the most advanced SASOL coal conversion plants in the world after the White hating US/UN banned all petroleum products being shipped to South Africa in years past.

[meenie]

If it is good enough for a ME-109, it should be good enough to power our needs. The German air force used it extensively in the latter stages of the war. A source of energy we do not hear much of is nuclear. When is this option going to be discussed?

[Richard-SIA]

Or, would it be simpler and more efficient to simply use the culm in one of the "waste into oil" machines that have been discussed here in the past?

One of those "waste into oil" machines is supposed to be built nearby, I want a tour when it is completed!